Home > What “The Elf on the Shelf” can teach you about productivity, leadership.

What “The Elf on the Shelf” can teach you about productivity, leadership.

The Elf on my Shelf isn’t working effectively.

Instead of duping my 5 year-old into behaving like a Christmas angel, it’s giving me a guilt trip. The footless red bandit is a constant reminder about my apparent inability to get my kid to do anything without a Christmas-based carrot and stick.

Reminds me of management… But before I get ahead of myself here: Do you know about this phenomenon known as The Elf on the Shelf?

It’s the physical representation of the ole Christmas tradition: telling children they’ll get jacque squat from Santa if they continue to behave like… well, children.

Presumably the prospect of Santa dumping coal into children's stockings wasn’t enough, so we created a commercial myth to arouse constant fear of poor behavior - at least in the month of December.

In short, each day your elf watches and evaluates the kids’ behavior. After the kids go to bed, the elf flies back to the North Pole and gives The Big Guy feedback. Each morning the jet-lagged elf returns to begin the surveillance anew.

In management terms, this behavior modification program is unsustainable. Yes, The Elf may contribute to clean plates and clean bedrooms before Christmas, but most of us continue to raise our children beyond December 25th. The Elf is a December-only short-term fix.

Fear-based management is short-term also. Want to guarantee homes get closed by the end of the calendar year? Just tell employees their bonuses are at stake. No closings… no bonus.

Oh, those homes will close.

Guaranteed.

How well will they be finished at the time of closing?

That’s a different question. And the honest answer is… “Well, at least we’ll have something to do in January. Finish the house….”

This is an example of bad productivity. Productivity delivered by means of fear.

It’s not sustainable and it devalues the relationship with employees and customers.

There’s bad profits also. U.S. carriers in the airline industry made virtually all their profits from enraging customers. While operations were essentially break-even, baggage and hidden ticket fees totaled more than $3B in profits. Don’t even get me started on the $3 can of Diet Coke.